Question 16607: I am a high school student who is having problems with equations and no matter how hard I try I cannot solve this equation.
3x-4=2x+8
can you help me please.
Answer by Earlsdon(6294)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Solve for x. As you probably know, the idea is isolate the variable, x in this case, to one side of the equals and the constants to the other side, using the standard rules of algebra. Some teachers like to think of this as a process of "undoing" or "unwrapping" the variable. Let's take a look at your particular problem.
 Since we have the variable on both sides of the equals, we need to collect them onto one side. So, we'll subtract the 2x that's on the right side from both sides of the equation.
Remember, whatever you do to one side of the equation, you must exactly the same to the other side, otherwise, you will change the equation to something different.
 Now we have x by itself...well almost... but we need to undo the subtraction of the 4 by adding (the opposite of subtracting) 4 to both sides of the equation.
 There...we're done.
Now, let's check our solution to see if x = 12 really works. Substitute 12 for x (all of them) in the original equation.
 Our solution is correct.
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